The Association of Seafood Producers is questioning the provincial government’s policy objectives when it comes to issuing processing licences.

Jeff Loder was referencing the licence awarded to the fish plant in St. Mary’s.

Loder told VOCM Open Line with Paddy Daly that there is a severe labour shortage in the province and in the case of St. Mary’s—like many other processing facilities—temporary foreign workers had to be brought in.

“Over a hundred or so worked at St. Mary’s this year,” says Loder. He asserts that there is no shortage of processing capacity for snow crab in this province “there is no factual evidence for that.”

He says the financial viability of existing processing facilities is another important part of the equation. He says profit margins for most plants are already thin and he wants to know what government’s policy intent is in increasing the number of processing licences.

“Is it the redistribution of employment from one place in Newfoundland to another? Is it to create a processing sector that is solely designed to ensure that there’s enough capacity to process whatever amounts of fish that harvesters catch in the first week of the season?”